Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1887-08-26

tenement house in back street. When
thew are out at the elbows and
knees, the thought of your splendid
robe in Heaven will not keep
them warm. The minister may preach
splendid sermon over your remains. ana
the quartet may sing like four angelsln the
organ loft, but your death will be swim.
die. You had the means to provide for tho
comfort of your household when you left
it and you wickedly neglected It. "Oh,"
says some one, II have mere faith than
YOU: believe when go out of this world
the Lord will provide for them. F" Go to
Blackwell's Island, go through all the
poorhouses of the country, aud will show
YOU how often God provides for the neg
iected children Of neglectful parents.
That is, He provides for them through
public charity. AS for myself, I would
rather have the Lord provide for my fami-
ly in private home, and through my own
industry, and paternal and conjugal faith
the next ten or twenty years to make a
great fortune, and SO I shall leave my
family, when go out of this world, very
comfortable" How do you know you are
going to live ten or twenty years? If we
could look up the highway of the future,
we would see itcrossed by pneumonias, and
pleurisies, and consumptions, and colliding
rail trains, and runaway horses, and break
ing bridges, and funeral professions. Are
you so certain that you are going TO live
ten or twenty years, you can warrant your
household any comfort after you go away
from them? Beside that, the vast majority
of men die poor! Two only out Of hum
dred succeed in business. Are you very
certain you are going to be one Of those
two? Rich one day, poor the next.
man in New York got 81, 1000, 900, and the
money turned his brain and he died in a
lunatic asylum. All his property was left
with the business firm, and they swamped
! it; and then the family of the insane man
was left without dollar. In eighteen
months the prosperity, the insanity, the
insolvency, and the complete domestic
ruin. Beside that, there are men who die
under the ground, or before their estate is
setteld up. How soon the nuctioneer's
mallet can knock the life out of an estate.
A man thinks the properts is worth $751;
900; under forced sale it brings $1,000.
The business man takes advantage of the
crisis and compels the widow of the de-
ceased partner to sell out to him Mt a ruin.
GUS price, or lose all. The stock was sup
posed to be very valuable, but it has been
so "watered" that when the executor tries
to sell it he is laughed out of Wall Street,
or the administrator is ordered by the sur
rogate to wind up the whole affair. The
be worth $4,000; but after the indebted
ness had been met, and the bills of the
doctor and undertaken, and the tombstone
cutter have been paid, there is pothing
left. That means the children are to come
home from school and go to work. That
means complete hardship of the wife,
turned out with nothing but needle to
fight the great battle of the world. Tear
down the lambrequins, close the piano,
rip up the Administer, sell out the ware
robe, and let the mother take child in
each hand and trudge out into the dessert
of the world. A life insurance would have
hindered all that.
"But," says some one, II am man of
small means, and can't afford to pay the
premium" That is sometimes q lawful
and genuine excuse, and there is no an
swer to it; but in nine cases out of ten
when man says that he smokes up in
cigars, and drinks down in wine, aud en-
ponds in luxuries enough money to have
paid the premium on o life insurance
policy which would have kept his family
from beggary when he is dead. A man
ought to put himself down on the strictest
necessity. You have no right to the lux
uries of life until you have made such pro-
vision. l admire what was said by Rev.
DR.. Guthrie, the great Scottish preacher.
A few years before his death he stood in q
public meeting and declared,
"When came to Edinburgh the people
sometimes laughed at my blue stockings
and at my cotton umbrella, and they said I
looked like a common plowman, and they
derided me because lived in O house for
which paid $35 rent q year, and often
| 7 bod nh r |,
very glad to have q cab; but. gentlemen,
did all that because l wanted to pay the
premium on a life insurance that would
keep my family comfortable if I should
die" That take TO be the right express
ion of an honest, intelligent, Christian
man.
The utter indifference of many people on
this important subject accounts for much
OF the crime and the pauperism of the day.
Who are these children sweeping the cross
ings with broken broom and be gging of YOU
penny as you go by? Who are these lost
souls gliding under the gaslight, in thin
shawls? All, they are the victims of want
in many of the cases the forecast of parents
and grandparents might have prohibited it.
God only knows how they struggled to do
right. They prayed until the tears froze
on their cheeks, they sewed on the sack
until the breaking of the day; but they
could not get enough money to pay the
rent: they could not get enough money to
decently clothe themselves; and one day in
that wretched home the angel of purity and
the angel of crime fought great fight be-
tween the empty bread tray and the tireless
hearth, and the blackwinged angel
shrieked: "Aha! have won the day."
o, man, before forty eight hours have
passed away, appear at the desk of some
OF our great life insurance companies, have
the stethescope of the physician put to
your heart and lungs, and by the seal of
some honest company decree that your
children shall not be subjected to the hui
initiation of financial struggle in the days
of your demise.
But must ask the men engaged in life.
insurance business whether they feel the
importance of their trust, and charge them
l. must that they need divine grace to help
them in their work. In this day, when
there are 80 many rivalries in your line of
business, you will be tempted to overstate
the amount of assets and the extent of the
surplus, and you will be tempted to abuse
the franchise of the company, and make
up the deficits of one year by adding some
OF the receipts of another year: and Won
will be tempted to send ont n,oon